Moving Dhamma Volume One: The Practice and Progress of Meditation using the Earliest Buddhist Suttas.

By Bhante Vimalaramsi

Bhante Vimalaramsi is an American Buddhist 28 year monk with training in the Theravadin tradition. After 20 years of doing it the wrong way he found the right way by going back to the original Buddhist Suttas. This book is a compilation of Dhamma Talks he gives on his retreats and includes all of his (The Buddha's) basic and deeper teachings on how to meditate and the stages of practice. Bhante Vimalaramsi is shaking up the traditional ways of teaching meditation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483506609

Book preview

Moving Dhamma

Volume 1

Bhante Vimalaramsi

Copyright © 2012-2013 Bhante Vimalaramsi

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-478-37306-3, 1-4783-7306-7

1st print: December 2012

2nd edited print: 6 September 2013

Other books by Bhante Vimalaramsi:

The Breath of Love

(2012)

Moving Dhamma, Volume 1

(2012)

The Ānāpānasati Sutta: A Practical Guide to Mindfulness of Breathing and Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation

(2006)

Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center

8218 County Road 204

Annapolis, MO 63620

U.S.A.

dhammasukha.org

[e-mail]

Phone: [phone]

For all present and future students of the Buddha and his teachings.

Strive on with Diligence.

The Buddha

Table of Content

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Mindfulness and the Six Rs

Orientation From Joshua Tree Retreat №5

MN-20: The Removal of Distracting Thoughts (Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta)

MN-10: The Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta)

MN-111: One By One As They Occurred (Anupada Sutta)

MN-38: The Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving (Mahātanhāsankhaya Sutta)

MN-135: The Shorter Discourse of Action (Cūḷakammavibhanga Sutta)

MN-95: With Cankī (Cankī Sutta)

MN-148: The Six Sets of Six (Chachakka Sutta)

Synopsis

Enumeration

Demonstration of Not-Self

The Origination of Identity

The Cessation of Identity

The Underlying Tendencies

The Abandonment of the Underlying Tendencies

Liberation

MN-21: The Simile of the Saw (Kakacūpama Sutta)

Harmonious Noble Eightfold Path

Harmonious Perspective

Harmonious Imaging

Harmonious Communication

Harmonious Movement

Harmonious Lifestyle

Harmonious Practice

Harmonious Attention

Harmonious Collectedness

Summary of the Harmonious Noble Eightfold Path

About the Author

Index of Suttas

Glossary

Preface

This book of Dhamma Talks is an explanation of the earliest Buddhist Suttas available. By reading them and having practiced what is written there, I explain their meaning as it affects the meditation practice.

My life as a monk has been trying to find the earliest teachings that the Buddha gave to his Disciples and his Saṅgha of Monks 2600 years ago. I have spent the last 37 years of my life doing just this. I did many practices during that time, but it was in 1995 that I decided to drop all other practices and just use the Majjhima Nikāya, which had just been translated and published by Bhikkhu Bodhi through Wisdom Publications, and to actually practice the meditation using only those as a guide and nothing else.

In a sense it was like remembering the experience of sitting under the rose apple tree after having been through 6 years of severe ascetic practice. I want to go back to what the Buddha was supposed to have said.

Amazingly, I found all of the Buddha’s teachings contained right there. By that I mean the entire meditation instructions, the progress of insight, and the final goal and how that is attained.

You need nothing else but the Majjhima Nikāya and the Saṃyutta Nikāya; however, but you do need a guide to help explain these if you have not been down this path before.

I have changed some words in the translations to other words with definitions that I think are closer to the original meaning of the Pāli and what I believe the Buddha really meant. For example, I use Collectedness vs. Concentration. Also in some places of the sutta I have put back in the older translation of the sutta that was left out so that you may understand the meaning better.

The reader, if using an electronic file reader like a Kindle or an iPad, may wish to turn on the text to speech function to listen to these talks, if this is available. This is the way they were given. These talks have been edited and have had some additional important material added, so they may not entirely match the talks posted on the Dhamma Sukha website.

The teachings of the Buddha are right here. I hope you find these teachings as interesting as I have.

Bhante Vimalaramsi

Abbot of the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center

UIBDS United International Buddha Dhamma Society

July 15, 2012

Acknowledgements

David Johnson compiled and edited these talks and organized all of this material, while Christopher Farrant in Australia was our proofreader and editor who worked around the clock on perfecting the rough transcripts.

Sukha Sisso, the Dhamma Sukha webmaster in Texas, originally gathered all of the transcripts together with the audios, and did most of the early audio and transcript editing work. An additional mention may be made of the few people who did a couple of transcripts from home and submitted those to our webmaster.

Many thanks to Jens Tröger who contributed the cover art, and who went through the manuscripts and put much effort into building eBooks of different formats. Also to Doug Kraft who helped us get this into a format that would be accepted by the publisher.

And of course to the Students who kept asking good questions so that many issues could be raised and answered.

Sutta translation © Bhikkhu Bodhi 1995, 2001. Reprinted from The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya; and The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. With permission of Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm Street, Somerville, MA 02144 U.S.A., wisdompubs.org

I share the merit of this book with all my students, past and present, the editors and collaborators of this book, Bhikkhu Bodhi and Wisdom Publications, and with my parents who supported and raised me.

Introduction

Bhante Vimalaramsi is an American Buddhist Monk of over 26 years. He started when he was 28 years old practicing meditation in California in the Burmese style of Vipassanā. Gradually he gave up the material world and got on a plane for Thailand where he became a monk in 1986. He then went on to practice meditation intensively doing thirty days and three months retreats, and later even an eight months retreat plus a two years retreat in Burma under Sayadaw U Janaka.

At the end of this two years retreat his Burmese meditation teacher told him they had nothing left to do; he was now ready to go and teach on his own. Even with this high praise a feeling that there was something more to learn kept nagging at him.

He went on to Malaysia, and instead of Vipassanā taught Mettā (Loving-Kindness) Meditation. Bhante took the advice of an elder Sri Lankan monk by the name of Venerable Punnaji to use only the suttas for his referencing. So Bhante let go of the commonly used commentaries and obtained a copy of Bhikkhu Bodhi and Venerable Nyanamoli’s translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. With that he headed off for a cave in Thailand where he spent three months practicing with the suttas as a guide and a cobra for company!

He started doing just what the suttas stated. He found out that in the suttas there was another step that appears to have been left out by later day teachers. The idea of Tranquilizing the bodily formations (sankhāra) was included in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta yet had never been mentioned by other teachers Bhante studied with. (Check the chapter on MN-10, the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, in this book.)

When he added this relaxing step, the practice took on a completely new tone. The jhānas, as discussed in the suttas, became very real but with a slightly different flavor which Bhante calls a "Tranquil Aware jhāna." When he added the relax step the meditation completely changed and progress was very fast.

This book is the first book of a set of talks that Bhante gives on his ten days retreats, many of which may be watched directly on the Internet. Unlike many other teachers he actually reads from the sutta itself and then provides a commentary that explains what the Buddha meant. Every night the student hears a sutta that is geared to where they are in their daily progress on the retreat. Also, unlike other teachers, he invites questions from the audience and wants to make sure that everyone has understood the text as it is written.

Bhante uses and prefers the translations that are done by Bhikkhu Bodhi vs. other translations that exist. He also will replace certain words as he reads from the book with his own interpretation of what the word should really be. For example, whenever the word concentration is written in the suttas, Bhante will say collectedness which he believes is a better translation. So the reader should be aware that Bhante will, at times, substitute his own translation as he reads along so that the text may not fully agree with the printed book by Wisdom Publications.

The book is made up of transcripts of Bhante’s talks. Some of the talks have introductions that were written by Phra Khantipalo, the editor of A Treasury of the Buddha's Words: Discourses From the Middle Collection, translated by Nyanamoli and edited by Phra Khantipalo, with notes by Phra Khantipalo. Then Bhante reads the sutta and comments on them. The actual sutta is bolded in the text of this book. Students ask questions periodically and he answers them, and then continues.

Bhante Vimalaramsi continues to give talks and retreats at his meditation center in Missouri, U.S.A and elsewhere around the world. You may see his web site at dhammasukha.org.

Mindfulness and the Six Rs

Excerpt from the book The Breath of Love by Venerable Bhante Vimalaramsi

Mindfulness (sati) is remembering to observe how mind’s attention moves moment-to-moment and remembering what to do with any arising phenomena! Successful meditation needs a highly developed skill of mindfulness. The six Rs training taught at Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center is a reclaimed ancient guidance system which develops this skill.

The first R is to Recognize but before we do it, the meditator must remember to use their observation power (mindfulness) for the meditation cycle to start running. Mindfulness is the fuel. It’s just like gas for an engine. Without mindfulness, everything stops!

Being persistent with this practice will relieve suffering of all kinds.

To begin this cycle smoothly you must start the engine and have lots of gas (mindfulness) in the tank!

Meditation (bhāvanā) helps you to let go of such difficult delusional states in life as fear, anger, tension, stress, anxiety, depression, sadness, sorrow, fatigue, condemnation, feelings of helplessness, or whatever the catch (attachment) of the day happens to be. Delusional means here, taking things that arise personally and identifying with them to be I, Me, Mine or "attā" in Pāli. These states result in suffering that we cause ourselves. This suffering comes from a lack of understanding in how things actually occur.

The six Rs are steps which evolve into one fluid motion becoming a new wholesome habitual tendency that relieves any dis-ease in mind and body. This cycle begins when mindfulness remembers the six Rs which are:

Recognize

Release

Relax

Re-Smile

Return

Repeat

Development of mindfulness (your observation power) observes each step of the practice cycle. Once you understand what the purpose of mindfulness is, keeping it going all the time is no longer a problem, and this makes the meditation easier to understand, plus, it is much more fun to practice. It becomes a part of happy living and this brings up a smile. Remembering the six Rs leads you to having a wholesome up-lifted mind.

This remembering by mindfulness is very important. Before practicing the six Rs you have to remember to start the cycle! That’s the trick! You have to remember to gas-up the engine, so it can run smoothly!

Then we begin to:

Recognize: Mindfulness remembers how you can recognize and observe any movement of mind’s attention from one thing to another. This observation notices any movement of mind’s attention away from an object of meditation, such as the breath, sending out mettā, or doing a task in daily life. You will notice a slight tightness or tension sensation as mind’s attention barely begins to move toward any arising phenomena.

Pleasant or painful feeling can occur at any one of the six sense doors. Any sight, sound, odor, taste, touch, or thought can cause this pulling sensation to begin. With careful non-judgmental observation, the meditator will notice a slight tightening sensation. Recognizing early movement is vital to successful meditation. You then continue on to:

Release: When a feeling or thought arises, you release it, let it be there without giving anymore attention to it. The content of the distraction is not important at all, but the mechanics of how it arose are important! Just let go of any tightness around it; let it be there without placing attention on it. Without attention, the tightness passes away. Mindfulness then reminds you to:

Relax: After releasing the feeling or sensation and allowing it to be there without trying to control it, there is a subtle, barely noticeable tension within mind/body. This is why the Relax step (Tranquilization step as stated in the suttas) is being pointed out by the Buddha in his meditation instructions. Please, don’t skip this step! It would be like not putting oil in a car so the motor can run smoothly. The important Pāli word here is "pas’sambaya. This word specifically means to tranquilize and appears as an action verb to be performed as described in the suttas, and is not a general kind of relaxing" that is included within other release steps found in other kinds of meditation. This point is sometimes misunderstood in translation, which then changes the end result!

Without performing this step of relaxing every time in the cycle, the meditator will not experience a close-up view of the ceasing of the tension caused by craving or the feeling of relief as the tightness is relaxed. Note that craving always first manifests as a tightness or tension in both one’s mind and body. You have a momentary opportunity to see and experience the true nature and relief of cessation of tightness and suffering while performing the Release/Relax steps.

Mindfulness moves on by remembering to:

Re-Smile: If you have listened to the Dhamma talks at dhammasukha.org you might remember hearing about how smiling is an important aspect for the meditation. Learning to smile with mind and raising slightly the corners of the mouth helps mind to be observant, alert, and agile. Getting serious, tensing up, or frowning causes mind to become heavy and your mindfulness becomes dull and slow. Your insights become more difficult to see, thus slowing down your understanding of Dhamma.

Imagine for a moment the Bodhisatta resting under the rose apple tree as a young boy. He was not serious and tense when he attained a pleasant abiding (jhāna) and had deep insights with a light mind. Want to see clearly? It’s easy!

Just lighten up, have fun exploring, and smile! Smiling leads us to a happier and more interesting practice. If the meditator forgets to Release/Relax, rather than punishing or criticizing yourself, be kind, Re-smile and start again. Keeping up your humor, sense of fun exploration, and recycling is important.

After Re-smiling, mindfulness recalls the next step.

Return or Re-Direct: Gently re-direct mind’s attention back to the object of meditation (that is the breath and relaxing, or mettā and relaxing) continuing with a gentle collected mind and use that object as a home base. In daily life, having been pulled off task, this is where you return your attention back to releasing, relaxing, and re-smiling into the task.

Sometimes people say this practice cycle is simpler than expected! In history, simple things can become a mystery through small changes and omissions! Doing this practice develops better focus on daily tasks with less tension and tightness. Mind becomes more naturally balanced and happy. You become more efficient at whatever you do in life and, actually, you have more fun doing all of the things that used to be drudgery. Nearing the end of the cycle.

Mindfulness helps with the final remembering to:

Repeat: Repeat your meditation on your object and keep it going as long as you can, and then repeat this entire practice cycle as needed to attain the results the Buddha said could be reached in this lifetime!

Repeating the six Rs cycle over and over again will eventually replace old habitual suffering as we see clearly for ourselves what suffering actually is; notice the cause of it and how we become involved with the tension and tightness of it; experience how to reach a cessation of that suffering by releasing and relaxing; and discover how we can exercise the direct path to that same cessation of suffering. We achieve this cessation each time we Release an arising feeling, Relax, and Re-Smile. Notice the Relief!

In summary, mindfulness (sati) is very relevant to Buddhist meditation and daily life. Sharpening your skill of mindfulness is the key to simple and smooth meditation. The process of remembering keeps the six steps of the practice moving. Practicing this meditation as close to the instructions (found in the suttas) as possible will lighten life’s experience. A very similar practice was taught to people in the time of the Buddha. It was taught as Right Effort. Within the six Rs we have added a couple more steps to make things a little easier to understand.

The remarkable results of doing the meditation in this way are immediately effective for anyone who diligently and ardently embraces these instructions. When you have an attachment arise this practice will eventually dissolve the hindrance, but it does take persistent use of the six Rs to have this happen.

When you practice in this way, because it is found to be so relevant in daily life, it changes your perspective and leads you to a more successful, happy, and peaceful experience. As mindfulness develops, knowledge and wisdom grow naturally as you see how things work by witnessing the impersonal process of Dependent Origination.

This leads to a form of happiness the Buddha called Contentment. Contentment is the by-product of living the Buddhist practice. This meditation leads to balance, equanimity, and the dissolution of fear and other dis-ease. With less fear and dread you find new confidence. Then Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity can grow in our lives.

Your degree of success is directly proportional to how well you understand mindfulness, follow the precise instructions, and use the six Rs in both your sitting practice and daily life. This is the way to the end of suffering. It’s interesting and fun to practice this way, and certainly it helps you smile while changing the world around you in a positive way.

When you are practicing TWIM, or Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation, you do not suppress anything. Suppression means we would push down or push away or not allow certain types of experience. This would temporarily stop hindrances from arising. Instead, when a hindrance arises, you must work to open your mind by seeing clearly anicca (impermanence, it wasn’t there and now it is), dukkha (suffering or unsatisfactoriness, you see that when these distractions arise they are painful), and anattā (not taking it personally, seeing the hindrances in the true way as being an impersonal process that you have no control over and not taking these hindrances as I am that).

You then let go of this obstruction, relax the tightness in the head, calm mind and finally, redirect your craving-free attention back to the practice of Mindfulness of Breathing.

As a result, you begin to see clearly how mind works and this leads to the development of wisdom. Instead of identifying with them, when you allow them and relax, these hindrances will naturally fade away. Mind becomes more clear and bright. Every time you let go of the ego attachment of I am that, mind naturally becomes more expanded, alert, and mindful.

Thus, one of the main reasons for this book is to show that whenever you suppress anything, you are not purifying mind or experiencing things as they truly are. At the time of suppression, you are pushing away or not allowing part of your experience. Thus, mind is contracted and pulls the tension even tighter instead of expanding and opening. As a result, this is not purifying mind of ignorance and craving. You are actually stopping the purification of mind!

It is impossible to experience the unconditioned state of the supra-mundane Nibbāna when one does not let go of everything that arises, and in that way purifies mind of the ego belief of I am that.

The Buddha never taught suppression of any experience nor did he teach a meditation that causes mind to fix on or become absorbed into the meditation object. Remember, he rejected every form of concentration meditation as not being the correct way. Actually, any kinds of pain, emotional upset, physical discomfort, and even death must be accepted with equanimity, full awareness and strong attention without identifying with these states or taking them personally.

Real personality change occurs when you open and expand your mind and let go of any kinds of hindrances, pain, suffering, and tension even in your daily life. This means that you open and expand your awareness so that you can observe everything with a silent mind free from tightness and all ego-attachment. You gradually lead a happy and calm life without a lot of mind chatter, especially during your daily activities.

When you practice concentration meditation, you will feel very comfortable and happy while in the deep meditation. But, when you get out of these exalted stages, your personality remains the same. Old anger, fears, or anxiety remain. This means when the hindrances attack you, you do not recognize them and open your mind and allow the hindrance to be there without taking it personally. Thus, you contract your mind and become even more attached! You might even become prideful and critical! This is because whenever a hindrance arises during the meditation, you let it go and immediately go back to the object of meditation again. You do this without calming and relaxing the tightness caused by the distraction. While in meditation, your mind tends to close or contract and tighten around that experience until mind becomes more deeply concentrated.

As a result, although this suppresses the hindrance, you have not completely let go of the ego-attachment to that distraction. Your mind is also tight and tense because you are not seeing clearly. You are not opening and allowing, but instead you are closing and fighting with that distraction.

This explains why nowadays meditators complain that they have huge amounts of tension in their head. Actually, if you truly let go of any distraction, there will not ever be any tension in the head. It is as a result of this suppression that there is no real purifying of mind, and thus, personality change does not occur.

The six Rs is a simple technique for the student to use when mind’s attention wanders off from the object of meditation. They are a key to cultivating mindfulness, turning hindrances into friends, exploring the Four Noble Truths, living into the Three Characteristics, and more. Getting comfortable and finally mastering this technique fulfills the requirements of the four Right Efforts and takes you quickly to the goal of staying with your object of meditation and letting go of any of the five hindrances when they arise.

Orientation From Joshua Tree Retreat №5

Presented on 6th March 2010 at Dhamma Dena Vipassanā Center, Joshua Tree, California

BV: So, I’m happy to see all of you. One of the things that I want to stress with this retreat is that you have fun doing it. I want you to practice smiling all the time. I don’t care what you’re doing, I don’t care if you’re going to the bathroom or taking a shower, I want you to smile. I’ve been called a sneaky monk because I don’t really tell people why I want you to smile very often. I want you to smile for a couple of reasons. The more you smile the better your mindfulness becomes. Okay?

Now the whole thing with the Buddha’s teaching is to have an uplifted mind all the time. That’s what the Buddha was really interested in. The more you smile and have fun and laugh with yourself for being serious about things, the easier it is to have the perspective so that you don’t get caught by the hindrances for as long a period of time.

Now, to the hindrances, there’s five of them:

Greedy mind — I like it. I want it.

Aversion mind — I don’t like it. I don’t want it.

Sleepiness-Dullness — I’m sleepy, I’m dull.

Restlessness-Anxiety — I feel like moving around and not sitting, I want to get up.

Doubt — I don’t know.

When I start talking about hindrances, quite often I don’t tell you which hindrances I’m talking about. I just say that it’s a distraction. Anything that distracts your mind away from your object of meditation, is the reason that you have to learn how to practice six Rs:

Recognize that your mind is distracted.

Release the distraction. That means don’t keep your attention on whatever has pulled your mind away. Next…

Relax tightness and tension in your mind. And when you relax tension in your mind, you relax tension in your body. Next you…

Re-smile because you’ve lost your smile when you get caught up in things. Then you…

Return to your object of meditation. And you…

Repeat staying with your object of meditation.

Simple, right? It’s simple but sometimes not easy. Yeah?

ST: What is an object of meditation?

BV: I’ll get to that in just a moment.

What I generally have people do is practice Loving-Kindness Meditation (Mettā) rather than the breathing meditation (Ānāpānasati). I have people practicing the Loving-Kindness Meditation because almost everybody starts with the breathing meditation, and they have bad habits, and it’s hard to break those habits.

The easiest way to do that is to change your meditation so that you’re starting out right at the ground floor, and that is with the Loving-Kindness Meditation. The Loving-Kindness Meditation is actually more than just loving-kindness.

Eventually, it starts working into all of the Brahma Vihāras. That is: compassion (karuṇā), joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā) along with the loving-kindness.

We start out by practicing loving-kindness. The first ten minutes of every sitting, you radiate loving-kindness to yourself. What I’m going to be teaching you is — it might be a little bit different if you’ve been practicing loving-kindness with other methods — because what I want you to do is: make a wish for yourself and feel the wish.

You could make a wish for yourself to be happy. What does it feel like to be happy? Do you know? You can make a wish that you feel peaceful and calm. You can make a wish that you feel very clear and bright. You can make up your own wish; make it wholesome, but feel the wish! Take that feeling and put it into your heart, and surround yourself with that feeling.

You’re going to have a lot of distracting thoughts at first. Your mind is not going to be very settled. That’s okay, doesn’t matter. I know that there are some traditions that they talk about: Well, just clear your mind.

Well, I know some people that have worked for two years to clear their mind, so they don’t have any thoughts coming in, but thoughts are not your enemy.

Thoughts are just thoughts, and it’s okay to have thoughts. But you want to recognize that your mind is thinking: let that thought go, that means don’t keep your attention on it. Relax, smile, come back to your object of meditation (the mettā), and stay with your object of meditation for as long as you can.

If your mind wanders thirty times or fifty times in your sitting period, and you notice it — and you let it be, next relax, and you smile, and comeback to your object of meditation — that is a good sitting.

A bad sitting is noticing that you’re thinking of something, and it’s so important that you have to keep thinking it over and over again. Actually, you’re not really meditating anymore.

Keep it light; don’t force the meditation; don’t snap your mind around; just simply notice it: Ah, there it goes again. Okay.

Let it be, relax, smile, come back; that’s all. Every time you do that, your mindfulness improves a little bit. It’s just like putting coins in a bank. After a while the bank starts getting filled up with the coins.

Don’t fight anything, don’t resist anything, allow everything to be there.

When something arises, I don’t care if it’s a pain in your knee, or a pain in your back, or it’s a persistent thought; allow it to be there.

The truth is, when it arises, it’s there! That’s the truth!

That’s the Dhamma of the present moment, and this means it has to be alright because it’s the truth; it’s there. You allow it to be there, next you relax, smile, come back to your object of meditation.

The first ten minutes of every sitting, I want you to just send loving and kind thoughts to yourself. Feel that happy feeling, feel joy, feel clarity, feel peace and calm. Whatever wish you make for yourself, feel that! Put that feeling in your heart and radiate that feeling to yourself and surround yourself with it. After ten minutes, then you start sending loving and kind thoughts to a spiritual friend, and I’ll get into that in a little bit.

While you’re sitting, I want you to sit with your back nicely straight, not rigid, but nicely straight, so it doesn’t cause pain when you sit. Don’t move: don’t wiggle your toes, don’t move your fingers, don’t scratch, don’t rub, don’t change your posture, don’t rock back and forth; sit still.

While you’re doing that, you sometimes have a feeling arise like there’ll be an itch, or a want to cough, or sneeze, or just thoughts keep running through; that’s fine. Sometimes pain can arise. Don’t move, sit very still. You can move as much as he (points at the Buddha image) does. Okay? That’s why he’s here to remind you how much you can move.

What happens when you get a sensation that arises in the body, like a want to cough, the first thing that happens is you start to think about all the reasons why you don’t want that feeling to be there: I wish it would stop. I wish it would go away. Why does it have to bother me now?

The first thing you want to do is to recognize that you’re thinking, and let go of that thought, and relax a little bit. Now you notice there’s a tight mental fist wrapped around that feeling: I don’t want to cough. I don’t want to disturb anybody else. Notice the tight muscles in your throat, and relax. Then notice the tightness in your head.

Around your brain there is a membrane called the meninges, and every time your mind gets distracted, it contracts a little bit, and there’s tension and tightness in your head.

After you let go of the tight muscles here, relax the tension and tightness in your head. It’s not